What are relative pronouns?
The most commonly used relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, which, and that. A relative pronoun is used to connect a clause or phrase to a noun or pronoun.
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that introduces a relative clause. Here is an example: The person who called me last night is my sister.
Relative clauses tell us more about people and things:
subjects | Objects | Possessive |
---|
who | who / whom | whose |
which | which | whose |
that | that | |
We use relative clauses
- that, who and whom for people
- that and which for things
For Example:
- Tom is the man that discovered the screwdriver.
- This is the bike which Paul built.
- We can’t find the tennis ball that we play tennis with.
- We don’t know the person who donated this money.
No relative pronoun
we can also leave out the relative pronoun when it is the complement of a preposition.
For Example:
- He was at the restaurant which I was telling you about.